At the outset, I should like to return to one aspect of what I was saying last night and to refer again to the Minister's proposal for the reorganisation of the Civil Service which is occasioning considerable worry amongst many people. The Minister hopes to reduce the cost of the Civil Service by replacing male employees by female employees and, by so doing, to get the same work done by girls who will not be paid the same amount as might have to be paid to men. In our economy, where even the male labour market is so depressed, a development of that kind is to be deplored.
Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 11—General (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That it is expedient to amend the law relating to customs and inland revenue (including excise) and to make further provision in connection with finance—(Minister for Finance).
Mr. Ryan
That seems to be a matter of administration rather than policy.
Mr. Ryan
I appreciate that, Sir, but in his Budget speech, the Minister sought to receive praise because of the reorganisation he is carrying out in the Civil Service. With respect, I feel it is necessary, at this early stage, to have emphasis placed upon that undesirable development.
We cannot have a discussion on administration and that seems to be a matter of administration.
Mr. Ryan
It is administration, but it deals with the very considerable cost of Government. Surely the purpose of the Budget is to provide for the cost of Government, and it Deputies have suggestions as to how the cost might be varied, with respect, I submit——
We cannot go over all the administrative acts of the Government in order to deal with economies. The Budget is the method of securing finances to run the country and, if we discuss all the administrative acts of the Government, we shall travel far beyond that.
Mr. Ryan
I appreciate that, Sir, but, with respect, I felt it was relevant in so far as the Minister was suggesting economies which would reduce the burden of taxation which he would have to impose on people. I feel that if he does that in this way, by replacing the fathers of Irish families who work in the Civil Service with female staff, he is taking a retrograde step. That is something he should be very slow to do because, not only will he deprive many men of the opportunity of developing and improving their conditions in the Civil Service, but he will also be saving himself the children's allowances which are paid to civil servants. It is undesirable that the State should give such an unchristian example in relation to the employment of the available labour.
I want, quite bluntly, to ask the Minister and the Government why they are so anti-city. The tendency since they took office has been to impose burden after burden on the city dweller and not on his cousin in the country. They have been urging the people to increase production in the past year and the only section who did increase production were the industrial workers. The agricultural end of the economy showed a considerable depression last year. The manner in which the Minister has rewarded the efforts of the industrial section has been to impose on them an additional burden to provide subsidies for that section of the community which has failed to achieve the increase in production demanded by the Minister.
I certainly think the Minister will be judged by his actions and not by his words. All that urging of people to increase production has been shown to be just so much hot air when we think of the additional burden of 3d. on the lb. of butter, ½d. on the pint of milk and the increased burden of transport charges which were imposed on the city dweller for the purpose of assisting his cousin down the country, who is not pulling his weight, relatively speaking, in relation to the increased production which the Minister boasts about.
Surely the Deputy does not suggest that industry is carried out in the city of Dublin only.
Mr. Ryan
The major portion of it is. I am quite prepared——
The fellow down the country carries it on his back.
(Interruptions).
Do not forget your colleague from the city of Cork who is sitting beside you.
Do not forget that the fellow down the country carries the industries——
Deputy Ryan is making his speech. He should be allowed to proceed without interruption.
Mr. Ryan
I am prepared to allow my arguments to be applied to every city and town. I submit my arguments are relevant. I am not in the least put off by parish pump politicians who come up here to laud their own parish. The parish from which I come happens to be the largest parish in Ireland.
Deputy Ryan is just parochial.
Mr. Ryan
In an area of about 20 square miles in Dublin, there is far greater depression, poverty and need than anywhere in Ireland. The tendency of Governments to provide support for industrial activity in what are called "undeveloped areas" needs to be re-examined. It is a very desirable social objective to spread industrial activity and to give the opportunity of employment throughout the length and breadth of the country. However, our first and greatest need is to increase production and to increase the markets available for Irish produce. We cannot do that if we impose on our industry the additional burden so often entailed by locating it in a situation which is basically uneconomic. When we do that, not only has the particular industry concerned but the whole economy to bear the additional burden. That is one of the reasons we have not been able to make a greater impression on the international market. We have the extra costing entailed by industry being wrongly located.
If we are really serious about the matter, our first objective should be to increase our industrial output by every means in our power and to use the best sites and best labour markets available. In Dublin, the degree of emigration is as great as, if not greater than, the emigration from the western seaboard. The only reason the population of Dublin is not falling is that people are coming into it from the whole of the 26 counties and, indeed, the 32 counties. The degree of emigration amongst people born in Dublin is as great as it is from any part of Ireland. The sooner the Government are prepared to face that fact, the better for the economy as a whole.
We certainly cannot afford to continue the present situation in which we are pricing our products out of international markets because we are locating our industries in the wrong places. There is ample labour available in Dublin. There are ample sites in Dublin. All the facilities industry needs are available in Dublin and in the larger centres of population throughout the country. They are not being properly availed of and, as a consequence, we are losing.
The Minister assured us that we are very well off indeed and that conditions in Ireland are good. He said the living standards of the people are rising. I question that. I base my facts not on any political stand I might be expected to take but on the Irish Statistical Survey issued by the Statistics Office. It is unfortunate that it is not up to date. However, it indicates that, in the first couple of years of the Government, our food consumption dropped considerably. The consumption of creamery butter fell. We are now eating less creamery butter than we were eating three years ago when the Government came into office. We are now eating less cheese, less eggs——
They were never so cheap.
Mr. Ryan
If they are cheaper, and we are eating less than we did three years ago, then we must be far worse off. We are eating less poultry, less sugar, less bread, less flour and less potatoes. We are drinking less tea and we are not drinking more beer. Does that indicate a rising standard of living or is the Minister joining with Marie Antoinette and saying that if we are not eating the commodities I have mentioned we are eating biscuits, cakes and jam? However, the consumption of these commodities also is falling and it is not surprising.
We are now paying 10d. extra for the lb. of butter. We are paying extra for milk, bread, flour and all the necessary and vital commodities.
And television sets.
Mr. Ryan
This clearly indicates the failure of the Government not only to raise the standard of living but even to maintain it at the relatively low level of three years ago. Notwithstanding the considerable drop in the consumption of the commodities on which the poor man depends, the Minister has seen fit to add an extra 3d to the price of the lb. of butter and an extra ½d. to the price of the pint of milk.
How serious is the Minister when he says we are living better than four-fifths of the people of the world? I suppose he is referring to the starving millions in Asia. If I proceed with this any longer, the Minister will probably ask me to name some of the starving millions in order to prove my point. In such a situation, I cannot understand how the Minister has the neck to call upon the non-agricultural worker to bear the additional cost entailed to subsidise agriculture because of the failure of the Government to give it the injection it needs.
It is obvious that agriculture needs extra help. If the failure in that industry is due to the Government, they should find some means of rectifying the position other than to ask the non-agricultural worker to subsidise it. Unfortunately, that is what has happened and the Government should be condemned for it. The extra 3d. on the lb. of butter, the extra ½d. on the pint of milk and the extra 5½d. on the 2-lb. loaf will not improve the economy one bit. There is nothing in any of those measures which can possibly increase production either in industry or in agriculture.
The Minister's talk to the effect that all actions must be directed towards increased production has been shown to be so much empty talk on his part. He has taken from the non-agricultural worker a portion of the increase to which he was entitled because of the increased production he brought about. The Minister is giving portion of the increase which was earned by the non-agricultural worker to the agricultural section of the community but it will not increase our exports, which are supposed to be what we are all after, except, again, at the expense of the non-agricultural worker.
If butter production increases this year, the non-agricultural worker will again be called on to subsidise Irish butter so that it may be eaten cheaper by the people in Britain than it can be eaten by the Irish people at home. I cannot understand these crazy economic trends. I fail to follow the line of reasoning in the Minister's speech that all efforts must be directed towards more production, more exports and lower costs, when, in relation to the main budgetary provisions which affect the price of every meal consumed in Ireland, he has taken steps which, though they will bring about a re-distribution of income, will not increase production. They certainly do increase costings; they are certainly going to continue the trend which has been clearly shown by the official statistics of the past few years—a trend of declining consumption of the basic needs of the people of Ireland because they are now eating less bread, less butter and less sugar and they are drinking less tea and milk than they were a few years ago. I think that is a most unfortunate situation and nobody can be blamed for this except the present Government who led people to believe that, if they were returned to power, there would be a radical alteration in our economy so as to ensure that this trend would not alone be halted but reversed.
Quite the opposite has happened. We have desperate depression, indeed and, unfortunately, it appears that the Minister is not even aware of it. If he was, despite the Party from which he comes, I do not think he could have glossed over the matter in the rather trite way he did in his Budget speech.
The Minister heaped some abuse on those who are not as optimistic as he. I know I was sent into this House by thousands of people for the purpose of trying to open the Minister's eyes to what is going on round him and of trying to disturb the obvious complacency of the Government. A Government who are as complacent as this about the economic life of the country and the woeful conditions in which so many people live are not deserving of the confidence of the people. I hope that the day is not long distant when the Government will test whether or not the people have confidence in them because it is clearly obvious to any impartial person that the country is declining all the time. In a situation in which money values have fallen over the past three years, we still have not reached the degree of productive capacity which we had three years ago and we were then very far from achieving our full productive capacity. We still have not reached the point at which we stood three years ago.
In the past 10 years we had two serious economic collapses, both brought about by the right wing Tory reactionary Budgets of the Fianna Fáil Government. The first one was in 1952. There was another in 1957 and the fact that this Budget makes no change in that situation is the reason the Budget and the Government must be condemned. There are those who feel that the Government must be patted on the back because they did not do anything in the Budget. My criticism is that they did so little to correct a situation which was crying out for a remedy. We have the same clap-trap thrown out to us here with no hope or policy for the future.
Like many of its predecessors, this Budget will be described by various appellations. Those who are responsible for its introduction will praise it and pour enconiums upon it, whilst those who constitute an Opposition in the House will probably endeavour to criticise the Budget because of its many serious shortcomings.
I think, however, that the Budget is a cute and crafty Budget. It is designed, obviously, to win approval from important and influential sections of the community, but if the Budget is to be, as the Budget should be, an instrument of economic policy, then this Budget fails utterly to meet the needs of our situation here or to provide a solution for the evils which faced us for more than 40 years. It dispenses favours here and there but it leaves the main problems untouched and hopes that, because of the small Party gifts to certain sections of the community, the Government will win approval from them as a progressive Government.
In my view the most vicious aspect of the Budget is the complete absence of any sense of social or human values. That is clearly evident from the parsimonious attitude of the Government in relation to old age pensioners and other social welfare classes, especially when you contrast the relative generosity of the Government in the Budget towards other sections of the community who are already well endowed with this world's goods.
I do not think you can judge a Budget such as we have by the terms of the Minister's speech or by the particular language selected by the Minister to announce the Budget. Nor do I think that to compare the economic position in 1959 with the position in 1958 is calculated to give us an adequate or realistic picture of the economy in which we live or of the basic difficulties underlying that economy. It cannot give us nor does it give us a picture of the probabilities that our problems are being brought under control.
The Minister said in the course of his speech that there should be an end to depressing talk. That is strange advice from the present Government because during two periods of inter-Party Government in this country many members of the present Government, led by the Tánaiste, paraded the country in the garb of professional "keeners" or, to use the Taoiseach's more elegant expression, banshees for the purpose of denigrating in every possible way the efforts of inter-Party Governments to grapple with the problems which then faced the country.
I said that the Budget had a warped sense of human and social values. Under the Budget we have made dispensations of a substantial kind to certain classes of people in the community but for old age pensioners, that is, for those who have withstood the battle of life and survived it until they have passed 70 years of age, the greatest contribution which we make towards an easement of their difficulties is to give them one shilling per week increase in their pensions. That means 2d. per day with no 2d. on Sunday or, to illustrate better the value of that 2d., we give the old age pensioner one cigarette per day with no cigarette on Sunday. Does anybody imagine that by that parsimonious distribution of a shilling to old age pensioners, 2d. per day to cover three meals per day, we can say we have discharged our social obligations to that long-suffering class?
The Minister says in his Budget statement that we are on the road to prosperity and seeks, as those behind him have sought, to paint a picture of a country moving rapidly towards prosperity. If there is prosperity, if the Budget testifies to that, how is it that we can only afford such a microscopic gift for old age pensioners as 2d. per day and then not for every day?
I ask the Minister to explain why others have been getting priority in the matter of dispensations under the Budget while the old age pensioners have been reserved for the most niggardly gifts of all? Why are the old age pensioners so far down in the queue? Why is it a case of giving to those who are already fairly well off? If things are good and prosperity surrounds us, then I ask why does the Minister not share that prosperity at least equally with the old age pensioners and with the various other social assistance classes and all those people who are not as well endowed with goods as many of the recipients of gifts under this Budget already are?
I met a person the other day who said to me: "What do you think of the Budget?" I replied: "You are a more impartial commentator than I am—what do you think of it?" He said: "I think it is an excellent Budget." To that, I replied: "Do you mind giving your reason for saying that." He answered: "Well, for example, I get £70 a year off my licence duty; I get another £20 a year increase for income tax purposes; there is one penny off my oil for heating and I get something from the cinema in which I have an interest as well.""Well," I said, "let us take one example. Let me calculate it roughly. The £70 a year which you are getting off your licence duty would give ten old age pensioners an additional 2/6d. a week." He said: "That may be but do not blame me. I did not give the money away, I got it and I have no complaint to make about it."
We give to a person who is paying a licence duty of £74 a year a gift of £70, the cost of giving 2/6d. a week to ten old age pensioners. We salve our consciences here by saying this Budget, however, makes provisions for rectifying our economic wrongs and adjusting our social inequality, while we do things so obviously glaring as the example to which I have just referred. The fact that Governments dress their political window by means of a Budget is something which I do not criticise. Governments are entitled to play their cards in their own way. All Governments have done so and I do not object to this Government endeavouring to do it but the very fact that the Government dress their window in a particular way and seek to give their wares an exorbitant value does not exempt them from liability to have their administration questioned, or the conditions under which a Government are trading examined.
My complaint against this Budget is that it does not penetrate, for the purpose of examination or rectification, the basic evils from which the country is suffering. I want to get the facts examined and it is not in order to apportion blame, because we are all to blame for this. It is not a matter for this Government; it is a matter for all Governments. It is an indictment of our political and economic intelligence and our failure to use over 40 years the powers which we believed, 40 years ago when we had not got them, we would use so beneficially.
Let us take industrial production. This country's standard of living must be based on what it produces because there is nothing a nation can live on except what it produces. Look at the picture and listen to the chirrups of pleasure which accompanied this Budget. Let us look at the Grey Book. I take this publication to be a truthful document. It is published by the Government Stationery Office and it is on sale at the Government Publications Sale Office and issued with the authority of a branch of the Government. Therefore, it must be assumed to be a correct appraisal in statistical form of the basic situation in various aspects of our national life.
In this document, we are told that the volume of production for all industries and services for 1959 was 106.9. That is regarded today as a gigantic achievement and as something which justifies whoops of pleasure by the Government and the Fianna Fáil Party. But let us go back to 1955. We find that in that year the volume of production for all industries and services was not 106.9 but 107.8, so that if we make a comparison between 1959 and 1955, we find we are now at a lesser stage of industrial production than we were in 1955.
We are told that more people are engaged today in industrial production but again let the Grey Book speak for itself. It shows that, in 1959, the average number of persons engaged was 155,100, but, in 1955, we had 156,600 engaged, so that again the progress we are making now is so rapid that it is less than in 1955. These are facts that cannot be gainsaid. It does not matter what Government are in office. These are the facts and these facts put against the position of every other free democracy in Europe show that today we are crawling while Europe is striding in the matter of increased production. These facts afford no ground for consolation either on the Government benches or on the Opposition benches. They indicate and confirm that compared with Western Europe, with all its wartime devastation, we are lagging behind in the volume of industrial production and that today, both in the number in industry and in the volume of production, we have reached targets which are less than those reached in 1955.
Let me turn to employment. Here we find a situation which is no more consoling. According to Table 16, on page 27, of this Grey Book there were 692,000 persons employed in non-agricultural activities, in the main branches of our non-agricultural activities, in 1959. In 1956, 718,000 were employed and in 1955, 726,000 were employed, so that from the point of view of providing additional employment, we have reached this position: in 1955, we employed 726,000 and in 1959—the so-called year of recovery and progress—we employed 692,000 or 34,000 fewer. This is in non-agricultural economic activities but if agricultural activities be included still fewer persons are employed because each year more and more people are leaving the land and, unfortunately, very large numbers of them are not getting employment in the production of machinery for the mechanisation of land work.
The workers leave the land here in many instances due to increased mechanisation in agriculture. In Britain and some Continental countries that fall in employment on the land may be taken up by additional employment in factories manufacturing agricultural machinery, but what is happening here is that mechanisation of agriculture does not go hand-in-hand with the stepping up of production of agricultural machinery. It frequently means that the Irish worker goes off the land and gives better prospects for the Continental agricultural machinery manufacturer to increase his staff to provide instruments for the Irish agricultural economy.
So far as employment in the non-agricultural branches of our activities is concerned there are 30,000 fewer persons in employment today than in 1955. We have less industrial production than in 1955, less employment. These are two facts which cannot be gainsaid merely because reliefs of one kind or another are given to certain classes in the Budget.
Let us take employment. I turn to Table No. 18. In reply to a Parliamentary Question which I asked recently I was informed that there were 707,000 persons insured under the Social Welfare Acts which means that when we have 70,000 persons unemployed we have ten per cent. of our insured population idle. When we have 80,000 unemployed, as we had a few months ago, we have much more than ten per cent. idle. I shall take the 70,000 for the purpose of easy comparison. With 70,000 unemployed, ten per cent. of our insured workers are idle. No other country in Western Europe has touched a figure of ten per cent. I think the British figure is less than two per cent; the European figure, on average, is less than three per cent. and in some cases less than two per cent. but here we have been able to keep a hard core of at least 70,000 unemployed. That is an extremely high percentage of unemployment; it exists to-day only in the most undeveloped countries. It has no comparison on the whole Continent of Europe, particularly in the free democracies to which one has access for this statistical information.
So, if you test the record over the last five years on industrial production, employment and unemployment, these grave, disquieting figures are there in all their nakedness to show how little progress we are making in grappling with the basic problem which underlies our entire economy. At one time the Government, of course, was supposed to have a plan to relieve unemployment. I do not think the figures I have quoted can be denied. I do not think they can be denied by the Government's advisers. What I blame the Government for is the sense of self-satisfaction, of complacency, which prevents their making a bigger and more serious effort to deal with these problems than in this or in last year's Budget.
On the question of providing employment I charge the Government with definitely and deliberately deceiving the people, with making speeches they know are fraudulent, with publishing literature promising things which they know cannot be fulfilled and which they do not intend to fulfil. In the last general election a leaflet was published in Cork headed: "Fianna Fáil plans the end of Emigration". A subhead said: "Quick action needed to avert national Disaster." In the course of the pamphlet they went on to say:
The present spate of emigration is the most serious now facing the nation. The recent census report has shown that the situation must be righted quickly if disaster is to be avoided. In contrast to the inaction of the present Coalition, Fianna Fáil has been preparing plans for the day when the Party would again take up the reins of Government. The full employment proposals recently announced by Fianna Fáil show how the Party intends to deal with the problem of emigration by providing jobs for our own people at home.
This follows in heavy type:
The Fianna Fáil plan proposes an increase over five years in the number of new jobs by 100,000. This would result in full employment and the end of abnormal emigration.
What was inside the head that produced that last statement—that Fianna Fáil was going to provide 100,000 new jobs in five years and bring about the end of emigration? That was in February, 1957: this is May, 1960. That is three-fifths of the time gone and we ought now to have 60,000 of those new jobs available, but, as I quoted earlier, we now have 34,000 fewer people in employment than in 1955 in non-agricultural activities alone.
When the Fianna Fáil Party or Government issues a pamphlet of that kind saying they have a plan to end emigration and provide 100,000 new jobs in five years, and when it takes office and we see the volume of employment shrinking year after year, we can only feel convinced that these promises are deliberately made to deceive the people or that they are condoned at high level because it would be politically inconvenient to draw attention to their obvious and fundamental dishonesty. The Government which promised 100,000 new jobs in 1957 in that pamphlet should now tell us when we are to get evidence of an overall increase in employment having regard to that promise and to the fact that overall employment is now decreasing.
The question of prices has been raised in connection with this Budget discussion. One significant thing is not yet fully appreciated, I find, judging by the reply to a recent Parliamentary Question. The reply showed that since 1957, 148 of the 200 items which comprised the cost-of-living index figure have increased in price in the past three years. Out of the 200 items used as the basis for measuring movements of the cost-of-living index figure 148 have shown increases in the last three years under this Government. I do not want to read out a long litany of these increases. Everybody is familiar with them, but a few are worth quoting. The Minister said our people can get good food. They could get good food in 1954, too, and they got it much cheaper than the prices at which they can buy it now, and they got more of it because it was cheaper.
When the inter-party Government took office in February, 1954, the 21b. loaf was 9d. It remained at 9d. The 21b. loaf to-day is 1/3d., an increase of 6d. in the last three years. Flour during the inter-Party Government period in office was 4/3d. per stone. It is now 7/9d. per stone. In both cases the increases have been due to the abolition of the subsidies and other Governmental action. Butter, which was 3/9d. per lb. when the inter-Party Government were in office, is now 4/7d. per lb.
Take these items alone and see the impact of them on the domestic budgets of our people up and down the country. See the impact of them on those unfortunate people who have to depend on social welfare benefits as a means of subsistence. See the effect on the small farmer who cannot control the methods by which he is remunerated. See the effect of them on the small self-employed man who finds that he has to work and toil in a really competitive market. Trade unions have very fortunately been able to secure wage increases for organised workers but, for the social welfare classes, the small farmer and the small self-employed man, and the unorganised worker generally who is found in every town and village in the country, there has been virtually no increase adequate to compensate him or her for the substantial increase in the prices of all these basic foodstuffs, and unfortunately this Budget does not provide adequate compensation either.
Housing has been the subject of much disputation here in recent weeks. Allegations have been made that the inter-Party Government cut back on housing and that this Government is the fairy godmother of the housing industry. I should like to put some information on record now. The information comes in the form of answers to Parliamentary Questions. I asked a question here which was answered on 22nd March. I asked the number of houses under construction by the Dublin Corporation and all other local authorities for each of the half-years July to December 1956 to 1959 and the average number of persons employed on such housing schemes.
I shall take the Dublin Corporation now. No one can deny that houses are needed in Dublin. The Dublin City Manager's estimate is for 5,000 new houses, quite apart altogether from any provision for the annual influx of people from the country to Dublin. In the six months from July to December, 1956, the average number of houses under construction by the Dublin Corporation was 2,159 and the average number of persons employed on these schemes was 1,883. In the six months July to December, 1959, the average number of houses under construction was 392, showing a fall from 2,159, and the average number of persons employed was 482, showing a fall from 1,883. If you take all other local authorities you will find that in the six months ended December, 1956, the average number of houses under construction was 3,584 with 3,836 persons employed on these schemes. In the six months ending December, the number had fallen from 3,584 in December, 1956, to 1,381 in December, 1959, and the number of persons employed had fallen from 3,836 to 1,604. So that, so far as helping to build houses is concerned, these figures speak eloquently for the factually widespread character of the inter-Party Government's housing programme.
To put it another way: Deputy Corish asked a question here on 8th March soliciting particulars of the number of men engaged on house building for local authorities. He got the information as at 31st January of each year from 1956 to 1960. Listen to the figures. In January, 1956, there were 6,147 persons employed building houses for local authorities. On 31st January, 1960—that is five years afterwards—the number had fallen to 1,181. Now, who is responsible for cutting back on housing? Can there be any indictment of the inter-Party Government housing programme when the figures then are contrasted with the figures to-day?
If you want to ascertain the grants for new houses you will find the information set out in reply to a Parliamentary Question on 8th March of this year. That reply shows that the amount of the grants in 1956/1957— I do not want to weary the House with figures—was incomparably greater than anything that was given in 1958, 1959 and 1960. All this adds up to the one conclusion; it is only against the background of what is now being done in respect of housing that the very substantial achievements of the inter-Party Government can be clearly seen.
So long as we have problems of the character to which I have adverted we make a fundamental mistake with ourselves and with our people. I think, by trying to underestimate the character of the rate of progress. I am not a pessimist. I refuse to be a pessimist, but I do not think one can harness the enduring goodwill of a people by giving them just the embroidery of a problem without telling them what the fundamentals are. If we are to harness our people for action, a national renaissance and a widespread policy of national reconstruction, we will only do it if they are made aware of the dangers which threaten to engulf them, of the serious problems which they should tackle now, while there is time to tackle them so that we may not have to tackle them in a more painful way, perhaps, in the light of events which we have no power in the world either to influence or direct.
We have got to realise that we can neither talk nor wish ourselves into prosperity, that ignoring facts will be a short-lived and a futile form of self-pity. As I said, our basic evils are unemployment, emigration and underproduction. These problems are not problems of to-day or yesterday. They have continued here for 40 years. Is there anybody in this House to-day, or anybody who could come back from the grave, who would imagine that we could have said and believed in the year 1920 that, by the time an independent Irish Government had been 40 years in office, in the year 1960 our population would be less than it was 40 years ago? But that is true. Our population to-day is less than it was 40 years ago. We can blame nobody else for that. We have got to stop making excuses for ourselves. The power of direction and correction is in our own hands. The very fact that we take no steps to correct the position and sit quietly by, with normal "business-as-usual" tactics, whilst we are losing our population—and we are the only white nation in the world to lose its population—is a clear indictment of our inability to face up to the problems which threaten the existence of the nation.
I saw a paragraph in the paper the other day about a meeting of Galway County Council where somebody said that the number of tinkers was increasing year by year. I do not know whether that is true or not. If it is, is it not a sorry comment on our position that while our population is falling the number of tinkers is increasing year by year? And this 40 years after we got the power of self-government into our own hands! It is not just a phenomenon but a grievous challenge to our existence that we are the only white country in the world losing annually the entire natural increase in its population.
Virtually every child in this country might as well be born in England or America as born here because that child, or at least a substitute for it, will leave the country in the form of an emigrant. Can you imagine any other country in the world tolerating a situation in which every new-born child is virtually given away? That is what we are doing. We are not actually giving the child away but we are giving away a substitute for the child. The child's father, brother or sister is going. That is what is happening in a situation over which we have the power of adjustment.
My complaint is that there appears to be no plan in sight to stop this mass emigration. A balanced Budget still represents our highest sights in the economic field. The little embroidery gifts, such as in this Budget, represent the best we can do in the social and human fields. I see no proposal on the horizon, no evidence of any change calculated to arrest this mass emigration which, I think, is going on to-day at a more accelerated rate than during the past two years.
I received a letter from a constituent the other day. While I think he exaggerates the situation, he said that if many more people left his village there would be no need for Civic Guards or clergymen so few would be the population. That is an exaggeration. But the fact that he felt impelled, because of what he sees happening all round him, to make a comment of that kind shows the stage of depression which is being reached by people who are witnessing the outpouring of the youngest and more virile of our people, leaving those who are aged and for whom the residue of the working population must necessarily make provision under social welfare and other schemes when they no longer have the physical stamina to earn for themselves.
One has only to take up to-morrow's paper and turn to the advertisements, if they are not crowded out by the Spring Show. There will be large advertisements that young men and young women are wanted for almost every aspect of industrial work in England, for commercial activities, transport undertakings and so on. Substantial pay and reasonable conditions of employment are offered, and in these circumstances it is expecting too much that our people at home, especially with the standards operating in the rural areas, can withstand the temptation of advertisements of that kind. So long as these advertisements appear and so long as we cannot raise the living standards in the rural areas, that outpouring of our people will continue.
Only the young and the vigorous are going. The elderly people are remaining here. But in many respects there is evidence all over the country that emigration is taking on a new aspect, that, assured by those who have preceded them that there is a good living for them in England, whole families are now abandoning their homes, going to England and settling down there to be lost permanently to the Irish nation. Therefore, when Deputy Booth complains that people are not eating as much bread as they previously ate and when Deputy Ryan says that less and less of certain commodities is being consumed, it is because the consumption of these commodities which previously took place here is now taking place in England. The bread, cheese and butter that used to be eaten here are now being eaten in England. The footwear that used to be bought and worn here is now bought and worn in England. Our population is declining and our home market falling, and all that is due to the fact that our emigration continues at an unprecedented rate.
While these endemic problems crowd around us, we see emerging in Europe two rival trade blocs to neither of which we belong. While we talk prosperity here at home through the Budget, our status in Europe is of an entirely different character. In Europe we are numbered among the five under-developed countries. In fact, a new appellation has been applied to us; we are now one of the "Forgotten Five." Anybody who examines the possibility of a trade war between these two groups in Europe or even the possibility of co-operation between them at a time when we are not a member of either must be alarmed at the reaction these groups are capable of having on our economy. Only time will tell what this means for us.
As far as our position in the British market is concerned, the British have already been compelled to make substantial concessions to Denmark in respect of bacon, and she may be compelled or induced to make other concessions in the agricultural field. In any case, her membership of the Free Trade Seven will oblige her to give substantial tariff reductions to the other six members constituting the Stockholm Seven so that, as far as our exports to the British market are concerned, they will have to compete more and more with the exports of those countries, until ultimately a day will be reached when they will have to compete with them on the same terms, instead of having the preferences which they now enjoy under our Trade Agreements with Britain.
That is a situation which we cannot control. It is just a bleat to lament these things because we can do nothing about them. These events are taking place. They will be shaped by the respective countries in accordance with their own needs and requirements and there is nothing we can do at this distance to direct the course of events in our favour, nor can we tell half of Europe not to make these changes because they would hurt us. None of these countries owes us a living and we have got to stop blaming them for our misfortunes at home. What we have to do is to meet, as far as our resources and ingenuity permit, the challenge which is emerging from the development, the existence and the growth of these two powerful trade groups.
The Minister ought to have told us in the course of his Budget speech what exactly we are doing to meet the challenge from these two powerful groups. The Budget, however, does not tell us and I do not see any organised or co-ordinated plan to deal with these basic problems, whether inside or outside the country. Apart from that vital trade competition, which may affect us more profoundly than anything else has done for the last 40 years, we still have our old enemies—unemployment, emigration and underdevelopment—permanently present in our midst. I think the solution of these problems is vital, not only to the Government Party but to each and every Party in the country. These are national problems which call for solution. These are not just Party problems and on whether we solve them or not will depend the standard of living of our people. Not only that, if we fail to solve them, and fail to equip ourselves to meet the events taking place in a developing Europe, then the whole viability of the Irish economy may be called into question.
If I complain that these problems exist it is not for the purpose of apportioning blame as between one Government and another. It is to warn against any feeling of self-satisfaction or complacency whilst these problems continue with us. A small development which results in the export eventually of any particular commodity this year or next year, or some bright momentary spark on the industrial or agricultural horizon, are small things compared with the basic problems which remain unsolved. As I said, their solution calls for the utilisation of every grain of ingenuity that can be mobilised. For 40 years various Parties in this House with various policies, various programmes and various majorities, have sought to solve the problems but they remain there in all their pristine unity for everybody still to see, and nobody yet can say that they have a solution, or can give a date for the solution or even the mitigation of these problems in their present aggravated form.
I say this with regret, as a born optimist, as one who can see our position as an island in Western Europe vis-a-vis our own problems and the emergence of powerful nation-shaping events in Europe, that the whole viability of this nation may well be challenged unless we can bestir ourselves to face up to the problems which confront us. That is not just the responsibility of the Government; it is the responsibility of all of us. It is the responsibility of Parliament and it is the responsibility of the people.
I should like to end by posing one question. Knowing our political differences, and at the same time knowing how vital it is that the nation should survive, is it not possible to devise some type of national organisation to generate the goodwill of all Parties and a new approach to find a speedy solution and make a substantial advance towards a mitigation of these evils which are with us far too long? It will afford little consolation to all of us if events in Europe make life more difficult here, or if they succeed in reducing our standard of living. If that happens we have nobody to turn to except ourselves. It may be easier to do things now while the situation does not call for any immediate alarm, whereas it may be very painful to have to reappraise the whole situation against a background in which we have no influence over the course of events which are shaping not merely the destinies of Europe but perhaps the ultimate destiny and viability of our own economy.
I have listened this morning with great interest to Deputy Norton. He has been in this House for many years. He has been Leader of the Labour Party for many years, he was twice a Minister in a Government of this country and I must confess grave disappointment at his contribution today. For instance, in dealing with emigration he says we have the power in our own hands to direct it or correct it, but not one word did I hear from him as to how we were to do it, or what his plan was for stopping emigration. Even at the end of his speech, when he referred to a new approach by all Parties, he did not mention what his Party's approach would be. Having dealt for a long time with the problem of emigration he makes a characteristic gesture, refers to these endemic problems surrounding us, and there he leaves them. That is not good enough and I do not think that it is true or right to say that in every respect the Government have the power to direct and correct the economy and to solve emigration and other problems which are endemic to the State.
I want to give Deputy Norton and the House a few examples of the sort of thing I mean. I want to ask why a person earning £16 a week, happy in his employment, with his own home, leaves the country and goes to America to work on a standard of living that is lower than the one he is leaving? What can the Government do about that? What can Deputy Norton's Party, the Fianna Fáil Party or any other Party do about it? It is no use wailing and saying that the Government have the power to direct and correct the economy. It is true that there are houses which are empty, new houses, reconstructed houses, on fair sized farms. It is true that over the past few years they have been locked up and that the owners have left. It mystifies me. This Government, this Party, has purchased the land, provided the houses at the entire expense of the State, except perhaps for £200, rearranged the land, fenced the land, put the people into economic holdings and, as soon as they have signed on the dotted line, they close up and go away.
It simply is not true to say that this Government or any other Government has a complete answer to the problem of emigration. I do not want to echo the banshee wailings of any Party, because I have great faith in the future of this country, provided the people themselves begin to realise that a Government does not take them up out of bed in the morning and put them to bed at night, that it is not the Government's responsibility, that they themselves have to do something for their own country, in their own country, and that ultimately the Government, like a sign on a road, can only point the way, provide the means, the money and the opportunity and that it is for the people themselves to grasp it.
It is, of course, true that we are lagging behind other European countries in the matter of industrial production. Again, Deputy Norton says this, but he neglects to say why. I am not for a moment accusing him of not knowing why. He knows perfectly well. We have neither the raw materials nor the technical know-how that European countries have. We have to purchase the raw material and slowly and painfully acquire the technical know-how. Over the past 12 months, this Party and this Government have made spectacular provision towards the expansion of the industrial side of our economy, but, again, it will remain for the people who are interested to avail of the Government's measures. That, I know, is happening at the present time.
More and more enterprises are being studied by the Industrial Credit Company, by Foras Tionscal and by the other bodies which are concerned with the promotion of industries, particularly in the west. More and more money is being spent in the examination of projects and the actual setting up of projects, in sending people to Germany, France and elsewhere to acquire the technical know-how which we do not have, and on all the other things which will redeem the promise made by this Party and by other Parties that the industrial production of this country would rise in such a way as to provide the necessary alternative employment to that proportion of the people (a) who want to stay in Ireland and (b) whose emigration could be regarded as unnecessary.
Another criticism that I fear I have to make is of an attitude of mind that some Irish people have and which has done us considerable damage down the years, that is, the partiality to the quick penny. Of course, in a country which is occupied and controlled by another State for a very long time people have to accept their opportunities when they offer but, now that we have our freedom, many of our people still seem to have the same attitude of mind, even though it is their own country that they are now hurting. When we arrange a contract for any agricultural or other product it is up to the people themselves who are parties to the contract to fulfil it honestly and in a desire to improve the prestige of the country and its products.
I do not like to give examples but there have been one or two instances in recent years where we had opportunities, from an agricultural point of view, which we threw away. Again, it was not the fault of the Government in power or that of any Minister but the fault of the person who had the attitude of mind, "Here is something out of which I can turn a quick penny. I will do it and to blazes with any damage that may be done to the prestige of our country." I believe that attitude of mind is changing, that people are beginning to realise that in the competitive market of to-day it is a bad policy as well as being unpatriotic to try to make a quick profit by not giving fair value. I believe that in years to come we shall get over any unfortunate impression that might have been created about our products by a few failures on the part of people who deliberately sabotaged their own and the country's good name.
I welcome this Budget and the provisions in it. It is a great tribute to the Government that it was possible in 1960 to bring in a Budget providing the benefits and reliefs embodied in this Budget.
I would particularly refer to the very important provision whereby there will be no estate duty in future on estates of less than £5,000.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.